of modern political economy, is the law of population instituted by an all-wise, all-powerful, and all-benevolent Creator, in reference to the being made in his own likeness, and gifted with power to control and direct all the forces of nature to his use-and, strange as it appears, no proposition ever offered for consideration has exercised, or is now exercising, upon the fortunes of the human race a greater amount of influence. That such should have been the case has, in part, resulted from the fact that it has been buttressed up by another one, in virtue of which man is supposed everywhere to have commenced the work of cultivation on rich soils-necessarily those of swamps and river bottoms with large return to labor; and to have found himself compelled, with the growth of population and of wealth, to have recourse to poorer ones, with constant decline in the return to all his efforts a theory that, if true, would fully establish the correctness of that of Mr Malthus. What are its claims to being received as true, will now be shown.

CHAPTER IV.

OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH.

§ 1. Look where we may, we see man to have commenced his career as a hunter, subsisting upon the spoils of the chase, and dependent entirely upon the voluntary contributions of the earth ; and thus to have everywhere been the slave of nature. Later, we find him in the shepherd state, surrounded by animals that he has tamed, and upon whom he is dependent for supplies of food, while deriving from them the skins by which he is protected from the winter's cold.

In this state of things there can exist but little power of association, eight hundred acres of land being estimated to be required for enabling a hunter to obtain as much food as could be obtained from half an acre under cultivation. Why this is so is thus explained by Liebig :

"A nation of hunters on a limited space is utterly incapable of increasing its numbers beyond a certain point, which is soon attained. The carbon necessary for respiration must be obtained from the animals, of which only a limited number can live on the space supposed. These animals collect from plants the constituents of their organs and their blood, and yield them in turn to the savages who live by the chase alone. They again receive this food, unaccompanied by those compounds destitute of nitrogen, which, during the life of the animals, served to support the respiratory process. In such men, confined to an animal diet, it is the carbon of the flesh and of the blood which must take the place of starch and sugar. But fifteen pounds of flesh contain no more carbon than four pounds of starch; and while the savage, with one animal and an equal weight of starch, could maintain life and health for a certain number of days, he would be compelled, if confined to flesh, in order to procure the carbon necessary for respiration during the

same time, to consume five such animals.”—Animal Chemistry, Part I, § 14.

That the power of association may increase, it is, then, indispensable that man should be enabled to obtain increased supplies of vegetable food, and they can be obtained only by the help of cultivation. That, however, implies an approach to individuality which, in such cases, can have no existence. The lands are common stock, and so are the flocks; and when, by reason of any failure of supplies, it becomes necessary to effect a change of place, the tribe moves bodily, as is seen to have been the case with those of Asia and of the north of Europe-and as it is now with those of the Western Continent. Under such circumstances, there can be no approach to that individuality which consists in the power of determining for themselves, whether they will go or remain where they are. If the majority determine to remove, all must do so, for the few who might remain would be butchered by other tribes, greedy for additions to the territory over which they had been accustomed to roam, and from which they had derived but a miserable subsistence. In this stage of society, man is, therefore, not only the slave of nature, but also of his neighbor men, bound to yield to the tyranny of the majority.

Absence of power in the individual man, to determine his own course of action-or, in that of a minority to judge and act for themselves—is thus a necessary consequence of inability to call to their aid the natural forces by which they are everywhere surrounded, and by whose aid larger supplies of food might be obtained from diminished surfaces-enabling them to live in closer connection with each other. In what manner, however, can the hunter or the shepherd compel nature to work for him? "His implements are of the rudest description, such as nature offers ready-made to his hand, like the shell that the South Sea Islanders use for a hoe. All the arms and tools that his forefathers had used, while the tribe was passing through its stages of hunter and shepherd life, were of this description. A flint had served for an arrowhead, and its sharp edge gave the only cutting instrument they had been able to construct. A bow fashioned by such a knife, the string of which was a thong cut from a deer-skin, was his chief weapon for the chase, or for combat at a distance-a club hardened by the fire, armed sometimes with a sharp stone, fastened to it by thongs,

was the weapon for close strife. A pointed bone, from the leg of the deer, furnished his wife with a needle, and its sinews with the thread, by which she sewed together the skins that clothed her household. It is with such tools only that experience or the traditions of his tribe have made him acquainted. One has but to walk into the nearest museum that contains a collection of savage implements, to see how imperfect they are, and, at the same time, to observe with some astonishment how fully they meet the limited wants of those who use them, and through what a long tract of time generations of men made no sensible improvement upon their primitive stock."”*

What, under such circumstance, is his course of operation, is exhibited in the following sketch of that of a single supposed individual and his descendants, during a period of time that the reader may, if he will, extend from years to centuries. By thus taking a supposititious case, and placing the settler on an island, we are enabled to eliminate the causes of disturbance that have, everywhere in real life, resulted from the vicinity of other individuals equally deficient in the machinery required for the subjugation of nature—and therefore driven, by fear of starvation, to robbery and murder of their fellow-men. Having thus, by aid of the system pursued by the mathematician, studied what would be the course of man left undisturbed, we shall then be prepared to enter into an examination of the disturbing causes to which it is due that his course has been, in many countries, so widely different.

The first cultivator, the Robinson Crusoe of his day, provided, however, with a wife, has neither axe nor spade. He works alone. Population being small, land is, of course, abundant, and he may select for himself, fearless of any question of his title. He is sur rounded by soils possessed in the highest degree of qualities fitting them for yielding large returns to labor; but they are covered with immense trees that he cannot fell, or they are swamps that he cannot drain. To pass through them, even, is a work of serious labor, the first being a mass of roots, stumps, decaying logs, and shrubs, while, into the other, he sinks knee deep at every step. The atmosphere, too, is impure, as fogs settle upon the lowlands, and the dense foliage of the wood prevents the circulation of the air. He

* Smith's Manual of Political Econemy, p. 43.

has no axe, but had he one he would not venture there, for, to do so, would be attended with risk of health, and almost certain loss of life. Vegetation, too, is so luxuriant, that before he could, with the imperfect machinery at his command, clear a single acre, a portion of it would be again so overgrown that he would have to recommence his Sisyphean labor. The higher lands, comparatively bare of timber, are little fitted for yielding a return to his exertions. There are, however, places on the hill, where the thinness of the soil has prevented the growth of trees and shrubs-or there are spaces among the trees that can be cultivated while they still remain; and, when pulling up by the roots the few shrubs scattered over the surface, he is alarmed by no apprehension of their speedy reproduction. With his hands he may even succeed in barking the trees, or, by the aid of fire he may so far destroy them that time alone will be required for giving him a few cleared acres, upon which to sow his seed, with little fear of weeds. To attempt these things upon the richer lands would be loss of labor. In some places the ground is always wet, while in others, the trees are too large to be seriously injured by fire, and its only effect would be to stimulate the growth of weeds and brush. He therefore commences the work of cultivation on the higher grounds, where, making with his stick holes in the light soil that drains itself, he drops the grain. an inch or two below the surface, and in due season obtains a return of twice his seed. Pounding this between stones, he obtains bread, and his condition is improved. He has succeeded in making the earth labor for him, while himself engaged in trapping birds or rabbits, or in gathering fruits.

Later, he succeeds in sharpening a stone, and thus obtains a hatchet, by aid of which he is enabled to proceed more rapidly in girdling the trees, and in removing the sprouts and their roots, a very slow and laborious operation, nevertheless. In process of time, he is seen bringing into activity a new soil-one whose foodproducing powers were less obvious to sight than those at first attempted. Finding an ore of copper, he succeeds in burning it, and is thus enabled to obtain a better axe, with far less labor than had been required for the inferior one he has thus far used. He obtains, also, something like a spade, and can now make holes four inches deep, with less labor than, with his stick, he could make those of two. Penetrating to a lower soil, and being enabled to stir the earth and